


Predictable

by thesurpriserice



Category: Henry Danger (TV)
Genre: Charlotte is the best I stg, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Henry is an idiot, Hurt/Comfort, I just need these three to talk, Jasper is an angel, Just a whole pile of trash, friendship everywhere - Freeform, idk TAGS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-01-07 09:56:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18408269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesurpriserice/pseuds/thesurpriserice
Summary: Alternatively, Henry is a dumbass and both Charlotte and Jasper are done.“I know! But like, maybe because he thinks that because he’s Kid Danger that he needs to be as indestructible as Ray.” Jasper shot out quickly, his hands hovering over the dials, unsure of what to do.“He isn’t, though! We went through this already when he did turn indestructible!”





	1. Turnabout

**Author's Note:**

> Set a few months after Broken Armed and Dangerous  
> So, I saw the idea that Henry just hides his sickness and injuries when he can from the rest of the team from Frog_that_writes and just straight up ran with it. Also, this boy needs a rest, give him sleep! It got me thinking about how much he's been through and there is no way he would be okay, like DNA-wise and whatnot.  
> And then I got thinking about how Char and Jasp would react to that. So this appeared.  
> Also, I apologise for Schwoz, I just felt like writing his accent into his words.  
> Enjoy, I guess xx

“Hey, you wonder if Henry’s arm is okay?” Jasper’s voice was muffled as he searched for his phone down the crack of the circular couch.

Charlotte tore her eyes away from the screen that was analysing the new footage of the break-in at the movie theatre and swivelled in her chair, only to see Jasper’s rear raised above the couch rim.

“Come again? What are you doing?” 

“Finding…my…phone! Hah! There it is!” Jasper spun around and smiled, triumphantly holding his phone aloft, “You know, his arm. He only broke it like a few weeks ago.”

Charlotte’s eyebrow lowered, her head tilting slightly. Well, it had been almost six weeks now, surely, he’d be okay.

“Yeah, Schwoz had it all patched up and he had his cast on too. He’d be fine now.” She stated, getting up from her chair and joining him on the couch.

“But, like, it takes a long time for a bone to mend, doesn’t it?”

Charlotte pulled out her phone and googled his question, idly tapping the case around her pear phone. Since when was Jasper interested in medical issues?

“Uhm, here…it says it takes four weeks for a child’s body to heal from a broken bone. There, you happy? Henry’s fine.” Charlotte turned off her phone and pocketed it. An uneasy feeling started to blossom at the back of her brain, like the time that birthday cake was delivered to the Man Cave and she had somehow ended up brain-warped and beating the ever-living hell out of Ray and Henry. Over the years, she’d learned to hone in on her instinct like that, but there was no danger here.

Jasper had pulled up a game on his phone, happily swiping away at whatever new thing he’d picked up that week. Good, they could leave that topic to rest and continue on their day of crime-catching.

“True…but Henry is seventeen now, practically an adult. They need six to twelve weeks or something.” Jasper said after a while.

“Uh…what?”

Jasper’s character died in the game and he made a sour face before letting the phone drop on the table.

“Yeah, it takes longer. I remember from when Oliver broke his pinky toe at school and he had to wear a boot, and the school nurse was telling us about how he needed a long time for it to heal, but not as long as a grown up.” He was now making weird shapes with his lips, mashing out his words in a variety of strange noises that made Charlotte rub her face in annoyance.

But he had a point, was Henry’s arm okay?

“Okay…but Henry would’ve said something if his arm was still broken. He couldn’t be Kid Danger if he couldn’t use his left arm.” Charlotte reasoned, the uneasy feeling rearing up its head further.

Jasper got up as she was talking and headed for the snack machine, asking for a nacho bowl. Smiling at his food like a dork before coming back to the table, he glanced his eyes over at the still-running analysis before setting his attention on his lunch. He crunched a few corn chips before pointing at Charlotte with one.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I get a bit worried about him, he doesn’t do too good when it comes to that.” Jasper ate the chip he gesticulated with, exclaiming a bit in pain when he bit his own tongue.

“What do you mean that ‘he doesn’t do too good’?” Charlotte felt like she was asking the same questions over again. Jasper could be really vague at conversations.

“Well,” he started when he’d finished massaging his tongue, which Charlotte had found extremely gross, “I always make sure that when he gets sick, I make him eat and get him to lay down, especially like two years ago when Ray thought he was faking it to get off work. His mum didn’t even know he was throwing up at school the day beforehand. I caught him in the school bathroom and forced it out of him. It has to do with, you know, his thing where he doesn’t like to share with people that he’s sick.”

Jasper scraped the inside on his nacho bowl with his finger, noisily sucking off the guacamole off of his digit like what he had said was no big deal. Charlotte started to feel sick in her stomach, and it wasn’t entirely because of Jasper anymore.

“But, I mean, many people don’t like getting colds, it’s probably just that.” Her voice had a bit of a hard edge to it.

“It happens every time. The green finger virus? He still came into work.” Jasper looked pointedly at her.

“Ray told him to come in. Both of us. We had too.” Charlotte fired back.

“He was coming in anyway, before his mum said not to. He told me.” Jasper rolled his head to his shoulder, picking a pepper off of the already half-way done nacho bowl.

Charlotte’s forehead creased, this was not looking too good. Sure, ignoring sickness was one thing and not good at that, but ignoring a broken arm is on a whole other level.

“Besides, there was also that rib thing a while back.” Jasper picked up his phone again, tapping a message to someone, making himself giggle a little bit at his own words.

Charlotte looked sharply back up at him and leaned forward.

“Rib thing? What rib thing?”

“You know, Henry’s rib. With...Drex? That’s gotta hurt.” Jasper clicked off of his phone again and ploughed back into the nacho bowl.

Charlotte just blinked, hard. His rib…what did he mean his rib? Drex had beaten him in the fight, and the stupid viral video showed him over Drex’s knees, but no one had mentioned anything about Henry’s ribs.

“Jasper, what are you talking about?”  
“You don’t remember? When Drex threw him into the cake mix, he broke one of Henry’s ribs. Left side, I think. That was before Drex came into the store and I punched him in the face...”

Charlotte could no longer hear what Jasper was saying. Frozen in shock, she couldn’t believe what she had heard. He had hidden a broken rib from them all? And then went through a poison vape session, gained a superpower and fought Drex again on the same day!? He was laying down when Charlotte and Schwoz went to get him, not to mention he winced when he got up before Schwoz nailed him with that beam. Why hadn’t he told her? 

“I didn’t know about that, Jasper! Why didn’t he tell me?” Charlotte interrupted him, causing Jasper’s hands to knock the bowl to his left and almost spill off of the side of the table.

“Jeez, Charlotte! I’m eating here!” Jasper yelled in return, getting one of her irritated looks.

“Jasper, not important!”

“It’s important to me!”

“Focus, please! He didn’t tell me any of that!”

Jasper finally stilled in his eating. He wiped his hands on his shirt and faced Charlotte fully again.

“He told me he did, and that it was all healed now that Schwoz had done some science-y stuff on it…which now makes less sense then it did when he told me, considering all Schwoz did with his arm was put a cast on it.” Jasper finished guiltily.

“Well, he didn’t. And, if he’s doing that again with his arm, maybe he’s been fighting with an actual broken arm!” Charlotte’s voice was getting louder and more worried by the second.

“But, like on the subject of Henry, I don’t know how his body would handle broken bones and bruises and fractures and stuff like that now.” Jasper caught Charlotte off guard with his direction of conversation. How did this help with his arm situation that was probably true after Jasper’s bombshells?

“Huh? What do you mean, handle?”

Jasper placed his hand on the table, tapping a bit to whatever song was caught in his head at the time.

“You know, he’s been de-sensitised, re-sensitised, mutated by that beast machine, breathed in venom vapor, been through a time portal, I think, four times, had his powers taken from him twice, had green finger disease, not to mention he was hit with a dream beam like four years ago that like scrambled his brain for a while, and that machine that Ray and Shwoz used to help him ace his Puerto Rican test…oh wait, I wasn’t supposed to tell you about that one—“

“WhAT!?” Charlotte jumped up and stared at Jasper in shock.

“It was back when even you didn’t know he was Kid Danger and he was going through a lot of stress and-”

Charlotte shook her head. “Jasper, I don’t care about that one right now!”

Jasper stopped retreating from Charlotte’s now angry form and put his hand under his chin.

“Yeah, well, after all that he’s gone through, I don’t know whether his body is the same, so I get worried sometimes about when he gets hurt. But he does tell me that Schwoz fixes him up good and that I don’t need to worry...?” Jasper’s voice started to soften halfway through his sentence, ending in a puzzled look directed back up at Charlotte, “He doesn’t tell you about any of it, does he?”

That bad feeling had spread all though Charlotte now, crawling along her neck and down her shoulder blades. Why hadn’t it occurred to her that Henry could take things differently now? She was the smart one, for God’s sake! And it had taken Jasper less time to figure it out that any of them.

“No, he doesn’t!” She’s started pacing now. All of these scenarios started running through her head, like what if Henry had another broken bone, or a fracture and hadn’t told anyone about it? Or worse, what if he got stabbed, shot or electrified? Would he just suffer in pain and… she couldn’t even finish that thought, “God, he’s an idiot! Why doesn’t he say anything?”

Jasper rubbed his forehead. “Well, we could be over-reacting a bit. I mean…”

Charlotte threw an angry glare in his direction, not ceasing her pacing.

“Oh, sure! We’re probably over-reacting to the fact the Henry hid a broken rib from everyone except you. That he could have been hurt in so many ways, and just decided not to tell us! Why should we be freaking out? It’s not like we are supposed to be there for him, as his best friends!” She was stomping now, her arms waving in verbatim with her emphasis.

Jasper got up too, the now-forgotten nacho bowl growing cold on the table. He walked over to the monitors, a panicky quickness in his step.

“Maybe he thinks that they aren’t too bad or something-“

“They are too bad!” Charlotte cut him off.

“I know! But like, maybe because he thinks that because he’s Kid Danger that he needs to be as indestructible as Ray.” Jasper shot out quickly, his hands hovering over the dials, unsure of what to do.

“He isn’t, though! We went through this already when he did turn indestructible!” Charlotte was wearing a line into the floor with her steely pacing. “How did you find out about his rib anyway?”

Jasper scratched his neck.

“I hugged him on his way out that day, and he made a screech. He said that he already told you guys! How was I supposed to know that he hadn’t?” Charlotte harrumphed in anger. That boy was going to be the death of her, if she didn’t kill him already first, “What can we do? He’s not just going to tell us anything. He’d wail at a hang nail, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he would scuba dive with a punctured lung if there were people’s lives at stake!” Jasper turned around in exasperation.

That image burned itself into Charlotte’s brain involuntarily, and it physically made her shiver. She was slowly beginning to realise that Henry would die for this job, without even a second thought. It had taken him two seconds to decide to give up his hyper-motility in exchange for the world’s continual spin. How long would it take him to decide if he would lay down his life for it too?

“We have to talk to him. Jasper, if he’s hiding a broken arm from us, what else is he hiding?” Charlotte had stopped pacing and grabbed the toolbox drawers for support, “We are his best friends. I swear to God, if his arm is still broken-"

The secret door beside the monitors opened and Schwoz walked out in a bathrobe, his head wrapped in a red fuzzy towel.

“Hello there. Vat are you two vup to?” Schwoz bustled to the drawers that Charlotte was clinging too, his smile brighter than they had seen in the past week. A grizzly few days of crime-fighting tended to make him want baths, Charlotte guessed.

“Re-thinking everything I knew about my best friend.” Jasper barely looked up at him, his hands still hovering over the gigantic dials.

“Oh…okay. Charlotte, is everyting okay?” Schwoz stopped moving about and cocked his head towards Charlotte, the towel flopping forwards towards his nose. In other circumstances, Charlotte would have laughed, or even rolled her eyes.

“Schwoz, has Henry ever come to you about his injuries?” This was no laughing matter now.

Schwoz’s eyebrows raised in surprise, his mouth crinkling upwards in confusion and thought.

“Uhm, he had dat broken varm some weeks ago now, and I guess you could count vhen his powers vere stolen. Vhy do you ask?” His eyes searched Charlotte’s face, rapidly dodging from one eye to the other. She was sure he could read the panic on her face.

Jasper cut in before she could ask.

“He never told you about his rib, or his throwing up before he got sick that time? Any other time?” Jasper was sounding desperate, and Charlotte couldn’t blame him. Maybe they were wrong, and Henry actually did seek medical help when he needed to, that he was actually okay, and his arm just healed up faster than they thought and—

“No, I have no idea about any ribs or trowing up. Vhat has happen?” Schwoz turned to face Jasper, his hands placed on his hips. Charlotte's heart dropped to the bottom of her stomach. No, no, that means that…

“Not once!?” Jasper could probably be heard up at Junk’N’Stuff with how loud he was yelling. Schwoz covered his ears in protest, but Jasper didn’t even see him as his hand flew to his pocket.

“No! Should he have?” Schwoz tried to cower behind Charlotte, but she was already jogging to the monitor to hit Henry’s tracking device. They were so going to have this talk, whether Hen wanted to or not.

“Yes! Damn it, it’s going straight to voicemail. Schwoz, where is Ray and Henry now? They were going for a meeting with the Vice Mayor, but where were they going afterwards?” Jasper was finger-stabbing the keys on his phone keyboard so hard, Charlotte briefly wondered if his fingers would go through the phone.

No, now was not the time for that! They had to find Henry, and fast.

The sound of the tube extending echoed through the Man Cave, causing both Jasper and Charlotte’s heads to snap up towards the rapidly approaching figure of Ray. Jasper’s feet seemed to carry themselves as he raced up to the superhero.

“Ray, where’s Henry? Is he coming down too?” His impatience surprised Charlotte.

“Uh, hello Ray, how are you? How was your day? What happened?” Great, Ray was acting like he was five again.

“Now, Ray! Where is he?” He glanced up towards the tube Henry usually comes down, but it stayed annoyingly silent. If there ever was a time to see his stupid smiling face, it was now.

“Geez, someone woke up on the impatient side of the bed this morning. Why, what’s so important that you need Henry right now?” When Ray was in full-blown child-mode, which was pretty much all the time, there was almost no way of getting him to help.

“Just answer the goddamn question Ray!”

“Woahhh, language Jasper! If you are down in the Man Cave, you speak only nice words out of tha-“

Charlotte’s heart lifted an inch off of her stomach lining when Henry’s location blipped up on screen. “Home! He’s at his home. Let’s go Jasper!”

She ran to the right tube, getting there as Jasper jumped into the left one. As the tube encompassed her, all she could see was Schwoz’s face morph from absolute confusion into a blend of realisation and questioning, and Ray walking back towards them, his hands in the air at a loss for their behaviour.

“Up the tube.”


	2. Counter Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want protective!Jasper and Henry listening to a very concerned Charlotte and these two fully worried about Henry and his dumbass hero complex, is that too much to ask?  
> Enjoy xx

It was past dusk when they arrived at Henry’s street, but they had still made it in record time. Jasper was charging ahead, tugging Charlotte’s wrist almost off of her arm.

Curse him and his longer legs.

“Jasper, we have to use his window.” Charlotte pulled her arm back, halting Jasper in his full-frontal assault towards Henry’s porch.

“Why? He’s probably eating dinner now.” Jasper’s voice was tight and breathy, sounding as anxious as Charlotte was feeling. 

She shook his hand free and started towards the massive tree that tapped against Henry’s window during the night and was his convenient escape route for when Swellview needed saving.

“You said he hated letting people know he was sick, let alone hurt. I want to be in a room where we can cover all exits in case he makes a break for it. His living room has like four. Besides, this conversation is for our ears only.” She deftly climbed from one branch to the other, the thought of the amount of times Henry would’ve done this with broken bones almost causing her to misstep.

“Careful! That makes sense,” Jasper whisper-hollered up at her, awkwardly following her climbing pattern, “You don’t think we have to hold him down for this, do we?”

Charlotte sat down and reached across for his bedroom window. Her phone beeped yet again, this would be the fourth ring from Ray since their abrupt departure from the Man Cave. She’ll answer to him later, this was now her top priority. The already cracked-open window slid easily up, and Charlotte steeled herself for a showdown.

“I’ll grab his arms.”

She wriggled herself through the window, stepping as quietly as she could on the top landing. A quick glance confirmed Jasper’s theory of dinner, Henry was nowhere to be seen. She turned back to see if Jasper needed a hand, but his hands were already latching onto the window to climb through. She walked down the steps, quickening her step when she saw his door wide open.

“How will we get him up here?” Jasper whispered urgently, closing Henry’s window silently and sitting down on the arm of his couch. His eyes still had a panicked, wild look to them that Charlotte could see even from where she was standing. Despite all of his air-headedness, Jasper cared about his friends wholeheartedly. Her own heart broke a little to see him so worried about Henry, and she didn’t doubt for a second that he was feeling guilty. Henry had assured him that he was alright, and Jasper being Jasper had believed him wholly. 

She put her fingers to her lips and closed the door with a soft click. She made her way back to the stairs and tip-toed up to Jasper, laying a hand on his shoulder and leaning in towards his ear.

“I’ll text him and ask him to look for a textbook or a gadget of Shwoz’s that I accidentally left in his room that I need back tonight,” she reached into her pocket and brought her phone out, swiping away her missed calls from Ray and poked out a text to Henry. She lightly patted Jasper on the shoulder, her eyes jumping from her message to Jasper’s face, “We hide, then when he comes up, I’ll lock his door and you stay here in front of his window. If he tries to run for it, we’ll stop him.”

“Good plan. Make sure that his closet is blocked too. He might make a jump for that.” Jasper whispered back, indicating his head towards Henry’s desk.

Charlotte nodded, hit send and straightened up, creeping down the stairs and walking to Henry’s metal locker-drawer. She wheeled it in front of the closet door, moving ever so slowly to not create too many squeaking sounds. Good, they had an escape proof room. Now they just needed an idiot boy to trap in it.

Jasper deftly pulled Henry’s couch slightly forward and rounded it, sinking into the small gap between the glass and the couch until only his head was poking out from behind it. The couch was dangerously close to the edge of the landing, but Charlotte couldn’t tell him to move to a better spot without making too much noise. Shaking her head, she stood behind where the door would swing open, her hands splayed out on his walnut clothes drawer. She would admit, this looked like a terrible plan, but it was the best one she could think up right now with her brain where it was.

And she hoped that it would work, it had to work. Henry needed to know that he didn’t have to soldier on alone and hide what hurt him.

“Piper, I don’t have your laptop charger, you left it in the kitchen!” Henry’s voice carried through the door, a familiar sound of irritation that made Charlotte hold her breath.

Alright, here they go.

The door handle turned and opened towards Charlotte’s face. She could hear his footsteps muffle on the blue carpet under his bed and he was humming along to something. His hand gripped the door’s edge as he started to close it, his head popping out from the frame and looking along his floor. 

“Alright, history book. Where ar-AGH!”

Charlotte jumped forward and slammed the door closed, locking it. She turned around and leaned against it, slightly smiling at the sprawled-out figure of a shocked Henry Hart, hand on his heart, legs bent in different directions and a mouth open far enough to catch a fly. She shook it off though, she had more important things to say, and yell at him now.

“CHARLOTTE! What are you doing here?” Henry took a few lungfuls of air and his eyes blinked a few too many times. Honestly, she would be laughing and filming this if it were any other day.

“Henry Prudence Danger, we need to talk and we need to talk right now.” She said firmly, but she still kept her voice down. Piper was downstairs and she had no idea where his parents were. Best to keep prying ears and eyes away right now.

He blinked again, hard and got up quickly, his eyes still on her.

“What? I was getting your textbook, right now! Why are you here?” His voice raised up an octave as his hands thrashed around a bit. Her eyes automatically tracked to his left arm, and she forced herself not to catch it.

“This isn’t about a stupid textbook, Henry!” She could scream, she really could. If the house was empty, she was pretty sure Ray and Shwoz would’ve heard her.

Henry’s shocked face morphed into confusion, his eyebrows almost touching each other. He stuttered a few noises in yet another familiar pitch in his voice, one that Charlotte had heard a million times.

“Wh…what? Is…is…what?”

Charlotte folded her arms in front of her chest. She took a breath and willed some of her frustration to go away. Best not to start with pure rage immediately. This was Henry after all.

“Henry, we need to-”

Three beeps from his watch cut her off. God, Ray had the worst timing of anyone she ever knew. Henry’s wrist flew up to his eye level and his face warped back into surprise before settling on that steely, determined look of Kid Danger. Charlotte used to appreciate that look, a look that meant that criminals were going down and that the day would be saved.

Now it made her skin crawl.

“I gotta take this,” He flipped up the watch’s cover and the holographic figure of Ray appeared in his bedroom, “Hey Ray, what’s up?” Even his voice changed, the sharper edge clashing against Charlotte’s eardrums. Her foot tried to take a step back, but the door stopped her. Where did Henry Hart go when Kid Danger appeared?

“Henry, is Charlotte with you? Both her and Jasper went looking for you and rudely left the Man Cave in the middle of their work and I can’t reach them. The three of you need to come here at once.” Ray’s small figure had his arms crossed and he look like a tiny, angry doll.

Henry’s eyes glanced over at Charlotte, back to confusion again.

“Yeah, she’s with me-” Charlotte cut him off by flipping the watch closed and deftly slipping it off of his wrist. She selfishly thanked God that his reflexes weren’t fast enough anymore to catch her, reprimanded herself and slammed herself back up against the door, squishing the watch between her back and the door.

“What are you doing? Give me that back!” Henry started over to her, but she held up a hand in front of her to stop him.

“No, Henry! We are talking this through and there is going to be no interruptions, not even from Ray!” She glared back into his eyes, causing him to take a step back. Hmm, maybe she learned a few things from Kid Danger too.

“Charlotte, what is going on? Why did you steal my watch and why is Ray wanting me, you and Jasper back at work?” Her eyes were still tracking back to his left arm against her will.

“Alright, first of all, are your parents home?” Charlotte asked, her hand remaining out in front of her. The watch began to beep again.

Henry scoffed and tilted his head up to the ceiling. His adam’s apple bobbed as he sighed in frustration.

“No, they’ve gone to a dinner party out in Hiddenville. Can I have my watch back?” He held out his hand, raising his eyebrow and cocking his head to one side.  
Okay, score one.

“And Piper? Is she downstairs?” Charlotte’s eyes flicked over to where Jasper was still hiding. She saw the top of his hair duck back down. She pleaded in her mind that he would remember that they both were here to talk to Henry, not just her. She also hoped he wouldn’t get distracted by that game on his phone.

Henry’s hand flexed open in his building anger, and he poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue.

“Yeah, but she’s watching some new show with her headphones in. Watch. Please.”

And score two. Piper wouldn’t move from her laptop if the house was on fire.

“Nope. I told you, you aren’t going anywhere until we’ve talked.” Charlotte planted her feet, she was not moving from here without a fight, and she would definitely fight him if he tried.

Henry groaned at her words and stalked away from her, towards his window. And he was limping ever so lightly, favouring his right leg. Oh, she was going to kill him.

“God, Char! Fine, keep the dang watch. But Ray needs us, we gotta g-JASPER!” Henry’s right foot slipped off of the first step towards the landing and hit the floor hard. Jasper had managed to scare him right back to the centre of the room when he jumped out from behind the couch, blocking the window. Charlotte clocked his worrying eyes glancing all over his frame, and his expression changed to a one of pain when Henry let out a wince as his weight shifted to his left foot. 

“You’re not going to Ray tonight, Hen.” Jasper’s voice started out surprisingly level, considering his panic in the Man Cave. Maybe faced with the reality of Henry’s utter stupidity grounded Jasper in a way Charlotte has never seen before. She was glad that Jasper was there, he has always been Henry’s emotional compass. Maybe he’d be able to talk sense into Henry before Henry did something stupid and ended up dying.

Henry’s head snapped back and forth between them in what was the most confused expression Charlotte had ever seen grace his stupid face, and that is saying a lot.

“Gu-guys! Come on, what’s going on? Why are you locking me in my own bedroom?” His voice was starting to raise another octave and Charlotte was reminded of how high his voice was when he was younger. God, he started when he was 13, why did she think that the years wouldn’t change him!

“You have been lying to us, Hen! How could you?” Jasper’s voice was losing its composure and starting to wobble. Who could blame him though? Charlotte’s hand behind her back was starting to shake.

“What, lying? What do you mean? I haven’t lied to you guys! I am so confused!” Henry started walking towards Jasper, his face all crinkled up. Jasper staggered backwards and slammed his back into the window frame.

“You have! You totally have!” Jasper spit back.

“Jasper, I have not! Whoever said that is lying to you. What did I lie about, huh? What did I say?” Henry’s finger was stabbing his chest in emphasis, still walking closer to Jasper with every sentence. He’d reached the bottom of the stairs again and pursed his lips into his questioning face.

Charlotte used all of her rising anger and fear to spit out three words.

“Bakery. Drex. Rib.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psst, if anyone wants to leave their thoughts and opinions, I would like that. Thank you!


	3. Affront

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want these children looked after and cared for! Also I want them to talk properly, like in a way that's not Nickelodeon-esque laughter can track.
> 
> Enjoy xx

You could probably hear a pin drop; the room had gotten that quiet. Henry had frozen to the spot, Jasper had clenched his teeth together, staring him down and Charlotte had all but stopped breathing. Looking up and down the statue that was Henry, Charlotte felt the dam break behind her eyes and a few tears escaped her eyelashes.

After what felt like at least a week, Henry ever so slowly turned around to face her, his face twitching between guilt and surprise. Charlotte scrubbed her hand across her face and sniffed once before crossing her arms across her chest, gripping the Wizwatch so tight she felt the little dials dig into her palm.

Henry opened his mouth a bit and she watched as his eyes darted up and to the right, his tongue touched the roof of his mouth and his arms started to robotically move in the patterns that all summed up his tics. Henry was about to lie again, and right to her face. The actual nerve of this boy…

“Wha-what do you mean, Char? I don’t know wh…what you’re talking about.” His words slowed down, he was doing that annoying slow voice he did when he was thinking on the spot. Her Henry reading abilities were so fine-tuned nowadays, she could probably start predicting what he was going to say.

“Are you kidding me? Henry, stop it! Jasper told me the whole damn thing!” The words just rose out of her throat like bile. She also stomped her foot, which shook all of the small things on his bedside table.

And now he looked nervous. Jasper took two steps towards him, causing Henry’s head to snap back towards him at lightning speed. He owned that whole deer-in-headlights look down to a T.

“Wha-wha-what? What whole thing? Jasper told you a thing, what thing? I don’t think I would know whatever thing Jasper would tell you,” he was backing up to his desk, his mouth running at three thousand miles an hour and Charlotte was so done. She took a step forward and his eyes snapped back to hers, “I’m sure the thing that Jasper told you is wrong, people get details wrong all the dang time-“

He bolted for the closet door, kicking his shin into his red locker. All it took was one look at Jasper and he ran to Henry, grabbing him by the shoulders as he lightly cussed out his own furniture. Charlotte threw the watch onto Henry’s pillow, launched herself at his torso and locked her arms around his plaid shirt, triumphantly noting his oomph of surprise.  
“No, no! You aren’t running away from this, Hen!” Jasper angrily barked out, somehow dodging Henry’s hand flailing at his face and started to drag him towards the bed. Henry’s noises of protest accompanied his digging in of his heels to the carpet, the red shag under his foot not helping his traction. Charlotte started pushing him, feeling like she was trying to force a brick wall to move. Probably not the best idea to try to overpower a superhero that has been fighting criminals at least twice his size for almost five years, her brain belatedly thought. Maybe weights weren’t such a bad idea.

“He-Hey! Stop! Let me-oof!“ Charlotte dug into his side and all the air whooshed out of his lungs. Advantage taken, Jasper bodily lifted him off of the floor and carried him back to his bedside. He stepped backwards up on the bed and collided Henry’s knees with his bedframe, crumpling Henry onto the bed into a seated position. Henry managed to shake Jasper off of his shoulders and attempted to stand up, but Charlotte just straight up dead-weighted into his chest and he sprawled back into Jasper. His eyes flared up in anger and a bit of pain and his eyes were wider than Charlotte ever thought they could go. His fingers latched onto his grey blanket and he tried yet again to get up. She pushed her hands against his shoulders.

“Jasper, grab his arms again!” Charlotte ordered.

“Char, Jasp! Let. Me. Go.” Henry gritted through his teeth. His eyebrows creased downwards, and he started to kick his feet at Charlotte.

Jasper sat on his knees, his hands threaded through Henry’s arms as tight as he could go. Charlotte kicked back at him and planted both of her feet on his shoes.  
“Will you try to get away if we do?” Charlotte asked.

“YES!” 

Charlotte rolled her eyes. She shifted her weight to his right foot to make sure she wasn’t hurting his probably sore leg, yet another one they could add to the list of Henry’s hidden hurts. Catchy.

“You can’t just run away from this, Hen!” Jasper added in desperately.

“Yes I can!” Jasper moved his head to the side, apparently seeing Henry’s headbutt attempt coming.

“HENRY! Please!? I need to know why you didn’t tell me about what happened in the bakery, and what possessed you to be so stupid to hide it from everyone!” Charlotte yelled right into his face, ceasing his movements. His eyes dropped away from her face, but she held her gaze right at him. Almost going cross-eyed, she waited for his answer.

After almost a minute of silence, he heaved a sigh and relaxed all of his limbs, letting Charlotte tip forward and narrowly miss hitting their heads together. His head lowered and his back dipped forward too, taking Jasper with it too. Charlotte gingerly stepped off of his feet and removed her hands from his shoulders, hovering them down his arms to his legs, resting them on his thighs as she crouched down to his head height. She heard the blanket move around a little and saw Jasper out of the top corner of her eye release his grip on Henry and gently grab hold of his shoulders.

“Hen? Why?” Charlotte’s voice softened, but she was nowhere near ready to let him go yet. He had some major explaining to do. His eyes darted away from Charlotte’s face, his lips remaining in a stubborn line. His breaths were sounding a little shaky now too.

“You know we aren’t moving an inch until you start talking, Hen. Trust me, I can be here all night,” Charlotte’s hands started rubbing little circles into his jeans, watching his jaw tighten and move, “And I will.”

He sighed again.

“I…I just…didn’t think…it wasn’t important at the time.” His voice was barely above a whisper.

‘It waSn’T ImpoRTanT At tHe TiME?!’ Charlotte’s brain screamed so loud she almost winced. She wanted to slap him upside the head, but she decided to match his tone.  
“Tell me, from the top.”

“Char…”

“Please, Hen.”

Henry sighed again and slouched back into Jasper.

“When he picked me up and dropped me in the cake mix, he…I didn’t even notice it at the time. I was too busy with the whole thing and Ray was trapped inside that box thing and then he did that god-awful song and embarrassed the hell out of me and I was-“

“Henry! Breathe okay, in and out, in and out,” It fell from his mouth like volcanic lava, all burnt and blistering hot from his tongue. Charlotte squeezed his thigh a little, a small anchorage point for both of them as she started again, “Okay, tell me what he did, Hen. Fully.”

Henry’s eyes wondered over to Charlotte’s, shining in an unreadable emotion.

“He…H-he broke my rib against the mixing bowl when h-he threw me in it.”

Charlotte’s heart dropped again. Hearing it from Henry’s mouth just made it too damn real. But if they were going to start showing Henry that it was better for him to share his pain, she had to keep going. She glanced at Jasper, who was caught between holding him up and hugging him and nodded.

“Now, tell me what happened afterwards.”

Henry sunk down further than Charlotte thought possible, leaving Jasper with the full responsibility of keeping his diaphragm up.

“I didn’t feel it at first, I just got up and tried to fight back. I didn’t even feel it when he pulled me across his lap. I…uh…felt it when I went back up the tube to Junk’N’Stuff. I bent over to grab pants from the odd clothes box in the back and next thing I know, I w-was on the ground,” He reached forward and rested his elbows above Charlotte’s hands, making Charlotte move back to sit on her haunches and Jasper letting him go to sit around the side, his arms still gently draped around Henry’s shoulders, “When I got up and put pants back on, I started to w-walk out and Jasp ran up to give me a hug. He…uh…thought that I had been examined downstairs by Shwoz and it just needed time to heal.”

“You straight up lied to me, dude. Why?” Jasper’s voice was lower than the others. Charlotte figured that Jasper got the short stick on this more than she did, a victim of omittance as well as an unintentional bystander influence Henry had created. Sure, there was no need to check on Henry, Shwoz or Ray would’ve done it by now. He’s fine if he says he’s fine.

Charlotte turned her head back to Henry and saw tear tracks glistening down the blonde boy’s face.

“Jasp, I…I didn’t want you t-to worry, and besides there was s-so many more important things g-going on…”

Charlotte detached her right hand from Henry’s left thigh and grabbed his chin gently, making his eyes raise back up into hers.

“Hen, nothing was or is more important than making sure you are okay. We need you to know that, okay?” Charlotte repeated the word ‘okay?’ when Henry motioned to pull his head away from her hand.

“I still don’t know why it’s a big deal tho-“

Charlotte visibly saw Jasper’s hand tighten the grip on Henry’s right shoulder at that. She got off of her numbing knees, sat on the floor and crossed her legs, removing her hand from his chin and placing it over his trembling one.

“Hen, you’re human. Of course it is a big deal, we both hate the idea of you getting hurt,” she gestured to Jasper with her other hand, who nodded enthusiastically, “But considering the job you have, it is almost unavoidable. What we hate more is the idea that you don’t tell us when you’re hurt. You don’t have to suffer alone, at all.”

Jasper leaned in, covering Henry’s right side with as much as he could physically hug. Charlotte gripped his hand and rested her forehead against his left knee. Henry’s free hand disappeared from Charlotte’s view for a bit, she assumed it was going to his eyes or cheek.

“You’ve been through so much physically, Hen, that we’re worried about what it’s doing to you mentally,” Jasper’s voice was partly muffled from Henry’s shirt, but Charlotte could hear it loud and clear, “and I don’t want you being anyone else than mine and Charlotte’s best friend.”

Henry cleared his throat and that hand came back down and clenched at his knee.

“But, I took an oath, and as Kid Danger I can’t just take days off when I feel off, guys.”

Charlotte raised her head up and fixed him with a look. A softer one, albeit, but it was still a look.

“Henry Hart can though. Because you are Henry, and Kid Danger and you need to know that the strongest thing someone can do, even a brash, crime fighting, ass-kicking superhero like you, is ask for help. Or at least let your two best friends know when you have broken a bone or three. Because if I have to find out two years later that you were walking around fighting people with broken bones again, I’m going to have to slap a boy. Hard.” Charlotte got up from the floor and sat to the left of him, keeping her hand on Henry’s until she tucked her feet in under her.

Henry’s mouth twisted into a half smile. Charlotte counted her tiny victory there. She knew he was stubborn and foolhardy and ran into situations without giving it a second thought, this quiet act wasn’t going to go away overnight. But with Jasper’s overwhelming trust and confidence in him, and her desire to keep the blonde ‘Boy Wonder’ alive, they might make some progress.

“Speaking of letting us know, what’s going on with your left leg, Hen Hen?” Jasper had managed to untangle himself from Henry’s frame, but still laid an easy arm across his shoulders.

Henry scoffed and faced his body towards Jasper.

“What, that? The Vice Mayor forgot to put his mini-golf clubs away and I tripped on them waiting for him.” He flippantly waved his free hand in front of him.

Charlotte and Jasper both raised an eyebrow at him.

“That’s true, I swear! Ask Ray, he was there.” He pleaded, jumping back and forth between their faces.

“You know I will, now.” Jasper replied evenly.

His hand slipped from under Charlotte’s and both reached up to catch his falling head. He groaned loudly.

“Am I going to have both of you checking up on me now?”

Charlotte clicked her tongue in her mouth and side-eyed Jasper.

“Yep, all day, everyday.” She bumped him gently, watching that half-smile turn into a small, Henry smile.

Jasper snapped his fingers. “Also, you need to tell us how your arm is doing actually.” He pointed to Henry’s left arm.

Henry attempted to hide it behind his back, but Charlotte caught it gently. Funny, he was becoming predictable now. Time, she repeated to herself, this will take a lot of time.  
“Henry…”

He sighed, the smile dropping from his face and moulding into a frown. Charlotte pushed his arm forward a bit.

“When I had to be Kid Danger again, the cast prevented me from being able to do things. Ray had sidelined me for too long and he needed my help,” he spoke too quickly again, “and besides, it really didn’t hurt that much. I think Schwoz’s cast thing could’ve been modified to heal it better with his science-y stu-“

Charlotte shut him up with a look. It sometimes felt like she was talking into thin air whenever she said anything to him. 

“Jasper and I don’t believe that Schwoz is the cause of that.” She huffed out. Henry’s eyes darted around the room, his confusion clear on his face. Jasper took his cue from her and rounded himself bodily towards Henry, clearing his throat.

“Hen, look. What also has us worried is the physicality of what you’ve been through. Your body has been through more than I think most people have, like the desensitiser and the time portal and whatever you had to breathe in to get your old power. Not to mention the virus that lost your power,” Charlotte felt his body tense up at that mention, still an open wound fresh in their minds, “You’ve been mutated and had your brain scrambled. Naturally, it makes sense that somethings have changed.”

“Like…your resistance to pain, your capability to heal and what you think you can go through.” Charlotte jumped in. Henry’s tongue had started pushing at the corners of his mouth, meaning he was thinking hard. Condensing his near-five years of crime fighting experiences into one sentence was possibly doing his head in.

“When did I get mutated?” And that’s what he chose to hold onto? Charlotte shook her head.

“You were turning into a ‘beast’, as Ray called it,” Charlotte sighed as she said it, “Not to mention when you laughed fire like three years ago.”

“Ohh, yeah.” Henry mumbled, looking down at the floor.

Jasper patted his shoulder and rose off of the bed, walking over to the door and opening it quickly to make sure Piper hadn’t decided to snoop around, before closing it and locking again. He dragged the red stool over in front of Henry and Charlotte and sat down, looking directly at Henry.

Jasper folded his arms and squared his head. “So, from the very top, and without any lies, misdirection or leaving Henry’s, we are going to hear everything you’ve kept from us and anything that you’ve discovered between when you first started as Kid Danger until today. And every time you don’t tell us the truth, Charlotte is going to flick your ear.” 

 

“Ow! Knock it off, Char!”


	4. Ripple Effect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This became longer than I thought it would go, whoops. It's gonna go somewhere, I think. Who knows, maybe I'll break Henry in half and see where that goes.  
> Enjoy xx

When Charlotte’s head hit the table for the third time, she dropped her pencil from her hand and stretched out her neck. Three hours of sleep followed by school was a terrible idea, in all honesty. She just thanked whatever deities that may be that she had no tests today.

Henry and Ray had been called away to a dispute in Swellview Park that involved three people, a firehose and a horse, but Charlotte hadn’t even paid attention when they were talking. Her mind was too focused on the list in front of her; a concise yet long list that she had titled Henry’s Hidden Injuries. Every now and then her eyes would skim up to the added subtitle that Jasper had scrawled after the first ten injuries had been listed. In his defence, he had been simultaneously angry and grimly amused when he wrote it, but it just felt so adept and it had seared itself into Charlotte’s mind.

_AKA: When Hen Decided to Risk His Limbs Without Telling Us._

Her eyes scrolled past sprained ankles, broken fingers and concussions, her heart snagging on the burns from the syrup factory fire, the untreated wasp stings from his three-day time travel stint and the previously unknown collapse he had the night after the jewellery thief Heather blinded him. The whole night, Henry had tried to play off every ailment like it wasn’t a big deal, his tone jumping from joking to flippant on the more serious ones.

But when Charlotte had flipped over onto the second page of Henry’s notepad and Jasper was asking about the Wall Dogs, Henry’s voice had started to get quieter as they went on.

His hands passed over his neck, his knees and his nose each time he mentioned them, like his memories of pain were stored in there and he winced hard at the mentioning of Drex again. It wasn’t until much later, when Charlotte had crawled into her own bed that she realised the not even Henry had known how much he had hidden from them until it was written out, neatly, five pages long and in small print.

She tapped her fingers along the printed words _dislocated_ and chewed her lip.

The slap of a hand beside her startled her enough to grab her pencil in defence. The lead tip nearly implanted itself into the inquisitive eye of Schwoz.

“God, Schwoz! Don’t do that!”

“Sorry about dat,” his head piqued to the side, clearly not bothered by his behaviour. His eyes shifted focus from the pencil a millimetre from his face to her face, then down to the paper in front of her.

“What do you want?” Her voice sounded ragged; she didn’t bother schooling it like she had all day.

“Oh, nothing… you sound tired, Charlotte.” He scampered back to the drawers that stood in the middle of the cave and dug around, pulling out some sort of collar and hobbled back to her, causing her to shuffle her list into a pile and lean forward. This was either going to be scientifically ground-breaking or entirely destructive, but both would mean distraction and she desperately needed it for a second or two.

He clipped the black ring around his throat and fiddled with a purple button at the side of the collar. He cleared his throat and pushed his lips together in a line, pausing his movements in what Charlotte guessed was showmanship anticipation.

She rolled her eyes and asked the obvious question.

“What are you doing, Schwoz?”

He tapped the button twice, and suddenly spoke.

“I am wondering the same thing about you, Charlotte.” Her own voice echoed back at her, Schwoz’s eyebrows lifting smugly.

“Your emulator? Why would you need that?”

He tapped the button twice and Ray’s strong voice rang out instead.

“The new and improved one! It works so much better now. Originally, Ray wanted this that to easily hide his voice and mimic someone else’s so that his identity could remain a secret, and so he could prank call people. You had to program it individually, so it only had Ray and Henry’s voices. Now, through soundbites, it can do anyone’s!”

“Of course he did. Sounds great, Schwoz.” She nodded.

Schwoz crossed his arms over his chest and levelled her with a knowing look.

“So, what is going on?” Hearing Ray’s voice come out of his mouth was confusing to comprehend, “Your apology to Ray sounded really forced and that whole display yesterday had me really concerned about you three.”

Charlotte shrugged her shoulders, stretching out her neck. She heard two taps and then Henry’s drawl filled the air.

“What’s wrong with Henry?”

Charlotte’s mouth quirked up involuntarily. Given that most of her mind had been delegated to Henry for the past 24 hours, she had been mulling over the best way to address such an issue. Schwoz was a good practice run to tattle about Henry’s misgivings. He could step up to the mark of adulthood when he really needed to. Besides, the list was too long for her and Jasper to put aside.

“So, so much, Schwoz. We spent last night figuring out what. This page,” she slid the first page over to his side of the table, “is the start of a very long list that makes me want to both strangle him and put him in a giant hamster ball.”

Schwoz’s deft eyes darted down the page, a frown starting to seep onto his face. Charlotte circled three dot points on the page in front of her and shoved the rest over to him and let her head fall back on the top of the chair. A shocked murmur and a rustle of pages indicated that Schwoz had reached the rib issue, probably. For almost a year, Ray’s former sidekick had been living frozen in their storage and Henry had learned to smile about it. Granted, being able to kick his ass had been an instant contemporary-style therapy for Henry, but the guy scared the hero right out of him. Henry’s voice was almost unrecognisably shaken when he recounted that day, that fight, his hands clenched to his pillow so tight it ripped his pillowcase. Charlotte could read between the wobbly words and dodgy eyes, Drex became his measurement basis. Hen was a great sidekick, but Drex was the best, so now Henry had to overcome the bar that the then-frozen asshat had set. Drex could take a punch, Drex could break a bone, Drex couldn’t feel pain.

God, Charlotte was glad he was stuck in time.

Jasper, his voice beat and his eyes droopy as he tucked a blanket around Henry’s lanky form, had no trouble in quietly voicing his distaste for Drex after Henry had fallen silent against his arm with his eyes closed. His shared fear of Drex with Henry had ensured that Ray installed bullet-proof glass on the Junk’N’Stuff door, jumping at the first few customers that had arrived the day after the playground showdown, his hand creeping over to the silent alarm triggers automatically. It also had kept him up for a number of nights that followed that day, his nightmares apparently warping Drex into different iterations of violent, garish demons that had him screaming to his ceiling. Charlotte had hugged him with all of the ferocity she could muster, her tears falling quite freely.

Henry’s murmur of ‘same’ broke Charlotte’s soul in half.

A flutter of pages caused Charlotte to lift her head up, taking in the width of Schwoz’s eyes and the strained line of his lips. Not wanting people to worry usually causes more deeply concerned worry, a line she told Henry last night, twice.

“Why did he...? Why did he keep this from us?”

A simple question really. Hearing Henry’s voice say that was jarring and she couldn’t help a single tear escaping her eye. She leaned forward and pointed at her throat, her eyebrow raised. He held down the button and unclipped the collar, tossing it on the seat beside him.

“His words were: ‘I didn’t think it was a big deal at the time’ which I was confused by, and ‘I took an oath, Kid Danger can’t have days off’ which is garbage. Essentially, he didn’t want us to worry and he thought that being a good sidekick meant he had to shrug it off. He also doesn’t like telling people he’s sick or hurt.” She sighed into the word ‘sidekick’, resting her chin on her hand. If she had the energy, she’d probably be pacing around the cave.

“Shroog it _off_?” Schwoz’s emphasis on ‘off’ was punctuated by his hand slapping on the table, causing Charlotte to jump slightly. She nodded, noting that his teeth were grinding softly together, polar opposite to his usual emotional outbursts.

“That’s not all,” she got up from the table and placed her hands on her hips, “Jasper put all of the times that Henry had been changed, mutated and experimented on together and we both think that his body isn’t the same anymore, like down to the DNA level. You get me?”

Schwoz nodded, slowly and first and then rapidly as he got up and dashed towards the screens. He stumbled into the wheely chair, his head snapping from one screen to another so fast it looked blurry in Charlotte’s eyes.

“Yes, his moo-lecular structure has definitely changed. His healing of da broken varm, his power, losing his power…it makes clear sense. Vhy did I not see it before?”

Charlotte’s feet carried her over to the screen station, Schwoz’s previous x-rays and scans of Henry adorning at least three quarters of the wall. The strained pitched in Schwoz’s voice sounded familiar.

“You weren’t looking for it. We’re all guilty of it, we just forget that Henry is human.”

It was that same strain that her voice had was when Jasper started this rolling stone.

Schwoz’s hands slid over the whole table, twisting dials and tapping buttons. Charlotte’s eyes couldn’t keep up with the amount of data flying back and forth between the screens. She turned her heel and stalked over towards the elevator doors, stretching her hands above her head. Rolling her head to one side, she pictured how she would break this news to Ray. If his reaction to Henry’s brush with death after that cannonball to the gullet was anything to go by, she gathered it would be tipping the nuclear scale. Granted, she’d have to escape the clutching hands and screaming words of Henry trying to silence her. Stubborn boy would fight to the grave to keep Ray from knowing he’d kept such a big secret from him, especially where his health is concerned.

Rolling her head to the other side, she gritted her teeth at their begrudgingly forced promise. Henry had made them swear not to tell Ray, at least not yet. Jasper’s grounding hand on her shoulder had kept her from jumping out the window when Henry had uttered ‘until I’m ready to’. She’d sworn her promise, but not without vocalising her unease. As much as she respected his wishes, they were talking about his safety and wellbeing for God’s sake!

Her phone jangled, startling her out of her thoughts.

“Henry?” Her eyebrow raised up an inch.

“Charlotte! Have you ever ridden a horse?”

She blinked hard.

“Come again?”

“Have you ridden a horse before?” The same question asked differently didn’t help her confusion.

“Uh…no. Why?”

He groaned, a few sounds from his background noise seeping through to her ear. What very much sounded like a fire engine and Ray screaming as high pitched as they could go, and the clopping of hooves caused her to stretch her phone a few centimetres away from her head. She didn’t even hear his response, turning around again to a distracted Schwoz.

“Schwoz, have you ridden a horse before?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you can't tell, I don't particularly like Drex. His story lines may be stupidly written, but I believe he changed the way Henry acted forever and he scarred Jasper for life. I will go toe-to-toe with anyone that disagrees, fight me.  
> 


End file.
